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Girl, 11, arrested for falsely reporting friend was kidnapped in YouTube challenge
Posted
July 27, 2023
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0:33Now PlayingAn 11-year-old Florida girl was arrested Wednesday after she falsely reported that her friend was kidnaped by an armed man — a prank apparently inspired by a YouTube challenge, authorities said.
The child said she thought the texts to 911 “would be funny” and claimed in the messages that her 14-year-old friend had been abducted by a man driving a white van on I-95 in Oak Hill at about 9:45 a.m., the Volusia Sheriff’s Office said.
She continued to text with an emergency dispatcher for the next hour and a half leading to a massive police hunt for the van — which never exited — by land and air. The girl even gave a description of the suspect and said that he had a gun, the office said.
Investigators, who failed to locate the van, tracked the phone sending the texts to a home in Port Orange.
At 10:23 a.m., deputies arrived at the house, spoke to the girl’s father and found her holding a phone that began ringing. When she answered, Volusia Sheriff’s Dispatch was on the line, the sheriff’s office said.
The girl — whose name The Post is withholding due to her age — told deputies that she had gotten the idea to prank 911 through a YouTube challenge.
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